25 years since The Postman

It occurs to me that this year is the 25th anniversary of Kevin Costner’s second-worst movie – The Postman. (His first worst was, of course, the other post-apocalyptic movie Waterworld which was basically Mad Max with jetskis. Although Jeanne Tripplehorn makes the experience worth it.)

The short version is that after the apocalypse, a traveling actor masquerades as a postman from a distant restored federal government to garner himself protection and sustenance. However, he inadvertently inspires a movement to overthrow a warlord and actually restore the government.

The book, by David Brin, was a good bit darker with quite a few changes. Most notably, the book portrays civilization being held back from recovery by fanatical survivalists who adopt a heavily Darwinian (or Malthusian, I suppose) attitude. Survivalists are portrayed as madmen who are glad society has collapsed, embrace the every-man-for-himself world, and will fight to prevent the establishment of any type of restorative process. Also, the nature of and role of men and women is prominent in the book, as one character recruits her own army of women to subvert and manipulate the men, through feminine means, towards the shared goal of her and the postman.

The book also featured more of the day-to-day scrounging and hard-scrabble living that the postman has to go through before he stumbles onto his deceptive new career. There’s a scene in the book where he discovers a cache of high-value items (tooth powder, antibiotics, an AR7, etc.) and is forced to abandon it as bad guys approach. The book describes his anguish as he sees those items get taken by the bad guys when they would have made his life so much better. Good stuff. There are smaller, similar scenes throughout the story that remind you that this is a world where something as simple as a tooth infection can and will kill you.

The book is much less happy ending than the movie but both are still, in my opinion enjoyable. The movie is rather long at almost three hours, but Im cool with that since I’m a sucker for this genre of movie. There are humourous touches in the movie that are absent from the book, and, bizarrely, now-dead rocker Tom Petty appears as himself playing the mayor of a small town of survivors.

The movie still has the theme of townies-vs-warlords that was in the book but the strident and vehement attitude about evil ‘survivalists’ is absent in the movie. The bad guys are not really referred to as ‘survivalists’ but rather as just a rather large organized group of thugs, in the book they are quite clearly called ‘survivalists’ and are portrayed as ear-cutting killing-machines who are one-man armies.

Is it a good movie? No, not really? Is it a fun movie? Well, if your idea of fun is post-apocalyptic living, sure. Is it entertaining? Yes, if you enjoy this genre. I’d watch it if it came up for free on Amazon Prime or I saw it while flipping channels. Would I actually rent it? No. But I would buy the book. Not as great as Alas Babylon or Lucifers Hammer, but still an entertaining read with a little bit of food for thought here and there.

Oh, and according to the book, the events in The Postman take place in the near-future of…2013. I must have missed it.

Movie night

Alright, I’ve seen just about every form of survivalist/postapocalypse movie known to man….and probably the most under-represented genre (probably for the best anyway) is survivalist romance. (You might think a post-apocalypse musical would be the most under-represented…you’d be…close.) And yet, I seem to have missed this:


I suppose the message given in the movie is that if you worry too much about the future you wind up missing out on the benefits of the present. At least, thats what the grasshopper would say. Nonetheless, I may have to go fire up the Netflix/Prime and see if I can snag this for some night when there’s nothing better to watch. John Lithgow, I think, is a good talent and I’d be interested to see how if he brings something to the role that couldn’t be accomplished by any other actor his age.

Then again, given Hollywood’s attitude, at the end ofthe movie the guy could have an epiphany, burn all his preps, and think he’d wasted all his time and money on foolishness. I’ll just have to watch and find out, I suppose.

Classic wisdom from the movies

Four minutes and forty-four seconds of perspective, philosophy, attitude and mindset that, in my opinion, is worth listening to. It’s called something else in this video, but what they’re really talking about is resilience.

Doesn’t matter if the economy is going gangbusters or if it’s swirling down the drain. Survivalism is resilience. How do we gain resilience from economic issues? By being where John Goodman says….you haveĀ  a solid car, a paid for house, money in the bank…thats your Fortress of Solitude. A good place to start.

But, as Goodman says, what you really want is to be in a position to say “F You” to…everything. To be able to have the freedom to not have to do something.

Inflation? I have a paid for house, a pile of cash, and gold. F you.
Food shortages? I’ve a basement full of food, a huge garden, chickens, and a pressure canner. F you.
Unemployment? I’ve no debt, money in the bank, and other revenue streams. F you.
Crime and violence? Me and my family are better armed than the local police. F you.

The position of F you is pretty much where you wanna be. How you get there…that’s up to you. Whats it worth to you to be able to just quit your job for six months and not have to change your lifestyle one bit? To be able to ride out a food/gas/power shortage? To have enough financial strength to weather pretty much anything? Is it worth giving up going out to lunch for a year? Quitting drinking and smoking? Driving the same crappy car for another two years? Working ten hours of overtime every week for the next year and a half? All up to you, man.

I’ve been increasing my levels of resilience over the last couple years and, if I stick to the plan, I should be at a pretty awesome level of F You in about three years or so. And then…the world can burn for all I care. Go get some F You.

New Terminator movie

It seems that in the world of franchised movies these days there’s the notion of ‘resetting’ the franchise by giving some deus ex machina reason for timelines/history to be altered, thereby allowing sequels that can ignore previous movies. Most notably the last X-Men movie and the last two Star Trek movies. Well, it appears the Terminator franchise is headed in that direction:

I’ll go see it, of course, but from the trailer it simply looks like a mashup of T1 and T2 with some better effects and a virtually completely recast roster..(except for dat vun notable excepshun.)

But, really, who doesn’t wanna go see Arnie rockin’ the flattop and making bad one-liners?

Video – 1980’s surivivalist movie with all the cheese and bad acting of the ’80’s

Someone pointed this out to me and its too bad to not share.

National Guard biker gangs? Check!
Rutger Hauer lookalike bad guy? Check!
Stilted dialog? Check!
Alpha/beta male posturing? Double check!
Ridiculous gunplay? You bet!
Big teased hairstyles….on men? Yup!

How Jerry Ahern didn’t get a check for this is a mystery.

Without further ado, “Jack Tillman: The Survivalist”:

Oh, the early eighties….we thought we were so cool.